Chapter 1091: The Master Wishes to Save the World
Chapter 1091: The Master Wishes to Save the World
After a moment of contemplation, Li Fan decided against being deliberately cryptic and nodded. "Indeed. But how did you figure that out, fellow Daoist?"
Xu Ke spoke in his slightly deep voice, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. "As someone who stands against the world, where else but the Fallen Immortal Realm could any trace of my existence be found?"
Li Fan was momentarily stunned. "Against the world? What do you mean by that?"
Now it was Xu Ke's turn to be puzzled. "You don't know what this thing I'm sitting on is?"
Li Fan shook his head candidly.
"Then why did you come looking for me?" Xu Ke's gaze was intense, his expression unreadable.
"I sought you for two reasons, fellow Daoist. First, to help the descendants of the Empire fulfill their lifelong wish."
"Second, to understand the various contingencies Mr. Bai left behind. After learning of his actions, I was deeply moved by his noble cause. However, the information I gathered in the Fallen Immortal Realm was incomplete, just fragments of memory from different times. It took considerable effort to find your hiding place. I was hoping you could help dispel my doubts," Li Fan explained with a sincere bow.
"The Empire?" He squinted, his mind seemingly drifting back in time.
"Yes, the legacy you left behind in the world where the red, nine-headed beast fell," Li Fan prompted.
"Ah..." Xu Ke finally recalled.
"Little Qing, Little Red..." A look of fond remembrance washed over his face.
"They are both still alive and well. However, the Fated Blackbird... it perished while searching for any sign of you," Li Fan said, holding out an object.
It was the last feather Little Black had left in the Beast Seed Realm.
Xu Ke took the dark feather, his hands trembling slightly. A flicker of anguish crossed his eyes. After a long pause, he said slowly, "I failed him."
"May I... keep this?" Xu Ke asked.
"It is only returning to its rightful owner. If Little Black knew that the feather he left behind would one day find its way back to you, he could finally rest in peace," Li Fan sighed.
"Thank you." Xu Ke carefully tucked the feather inside his robes.
Absolute silence once again descended upon the towering stone mountain.
At the desolate apex of this world, it seemed as though even the wind did not exist.
There was only the eternal, deathly quiet that had persisted since time immemorial.
Li Fan was not in a hurry. He simply sat with Xu Ke, sharing in the desolate silence of the heavens, waiting patiently.
A long time passed before Xu Ke finally spoke again.
Thanks to Li Fan's series of gestures, his attitude had changed dramatically.
"How much do you know so far?" Xu Ke inquired.
"That year, you and Little Black traveled to the Nanming Sacred Mountain under orders from Mr. Bai. It was a mission for the Imperial Beast Sect. All the actions that followed were for the ultimate purpose of cultivating the Split Boundary Whale, a creature capable of infinite multiplication and carving out voids. This was to ensure that the mortals forced to migrate to the small worlds due to the birth of the Immortal-Mortal Miasma could get as far away from the Xuanhuang Realm as possible."
"And the so-called Immortal-Mortal Miasma was a product of Mr. Bai reversing the natural order. As the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate, he ultimately gave his own life for this cause."
...
Li Fan slowly recounted the conclusions he had pieced together from his findings in the Fallen Immortal Realm and the real world.
"You truly know a great deal."
"You've put in the effort."
"In this world, how many still remember Mr. Bai?" Xu Ke actually gave Li Fan a formal bow, a gesture of profound respect.
"But I am left with many questions and things I cannot reconcile. I implore you to enlighten me, fellow Daoist. Otherwise, I fear I will never find peace," Li Fan declared solemnly.
"As the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate, Mr. Bai was the strongest being in the Xuanhuang Realm at the time. Why did he choose to sacrifice himself, using a method like the Immortal-Mortal Miasma to protect mortals?"
"Do you believe the Immortal-Mortal Miasma was effective? If the Xuanhuang Realm had never seen its like from the very beginning, how would history have unfolded?" Xu Ke countered.
Li Fan pondered for a moment before speaking slowly. "Without the miasma, the calamity of the Law of Incompatible Cultivation would still exist. Cultivators would eventually descend into a desperate state of mutual suspicion and slaughter. In that process..."
"When the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat are doomed. In a wasteland ravaged by cultivators, where would mortals find refuge? It would be a blessing if even one in ten thousand survived. Being infected by the Immortal-Mortal Miasma and then forced to migrate to small worlds, though many would die in the process, is an almost negligible price compared to the fate they would have suffered had they remained in the Xuanhuang Realm," Xu Ke finished for him.
Li Fan heard this and slowly nodded in agreement.
"So, you're saying that Mr. Bai foresaw the fate of the Xuanhuang Realm for thousands of years to come, right from the very beginning of the great calamity?" Li Fan asked again.
"For Mr. Bai, that was not a difficult task," Xu Ke stated, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"If that's the case..." Li Fan's tone and expression shifted abruptly.
"The calamity of the Law of Incompatible Cultivation was single-handedly caused by the Dharma Spreading Heavenly Venerate. If that prime culprit had been slain, it might have been possible to restore order! Why did Mr. Bai choose to retreat without even a fight?"
"He didn't even care about his own life, yet he lacked the courage to face the Dharma Spreader?" Li Fan's voice was thick with resentment.
After a moment of silence, Xu Ke sighed softly and uttered a phrase Mr. Bai had once lamented, "There is no immortal path to tread, for the Dharma Spreading Heavenly Venerate reigns supreme."
He then explained, "First, it's debatable whether Mr. Bai at the time was a match for the Dharma Spreading Heavenly Venerate, who had already succeeded in reversing the natural order."
"In fact, according to Mr. Bai's deductions, even killing the Dharma Spreader would not have prevented the great calamity from descending upon the Xuanhuang Realm."
"In Ningyuan City, in that underground chamber... have you seen those beast-seed monsters, the ones that are a fusion of man and dog?"
"I have."
"Those beast-seeds... a human torso, the limbs of a dog. Mr. Bai once tried to save them. He gathered suitable human limbs, wanting to remove their dog legs and reattach human ones."
"But because their dog limbs had, through the course of their daily lives, become completely integrated with their bodies, Mr. Bai's repeated attempts all ended in failure."
"Most of them died right on the operating table. And even those who seemed to be successful rarely survived more than a month post-surgery. Their life force would drain away at a terrifying rate, leading to a miserable death."
"No matter how hard Mr. Bai tried, the outcome never changed."
Xu Ke recounted the story with a calm demeanor.
Li Fan, however, was slowly beginning to grasp the implications.
"You mean to say, the Xuanhuang Realm was facing the same situation?"
Xu Ke sighed. "It's like trying to gather spilled water."
"The changes the Dharma Spreader inflicted upon the Xuanhuang Realm had already taken hold."
"To reverse them would have required ten, perhaps a hundred times the effort."
(End of Chapter)
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